Archaeoentomological Indicators of Long-Term Food Plant Storage at the Prehispanic Granary of La Fortaleza (Gran Canaria, Spain)
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Journal of Archaeological Science 120 (2020) 105179 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas Archaeoentomological indicators of long-term food plant storage at the Prehispanic granary of La Fortaleza (Gran Canaria, Spain) Pedro Henríquez-Valido a,*, Jacob Morales a, Paloma Vidal-Matutano a, Marco Moreno-Benítez b, � a a c,d,e Angel Marchante-Ortega , Amelia Rodríguez-Rodríguez , Jean-Bernard Huchet a G. I. Tarha. Dpto. Ciencias Historicas,� Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, C/ P�erez del Toro 1, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain b Tibicena Arqueología y Patrimonio, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain c UMR 5199 - PACEA, Anthropologie des Populations Pass�ees et pr�esentes, Universit�e de Bordeaux, 33615, Pessac Cedex, France d UMR 7209 - Arch�eozoologie, Arch�eobotanique: soci�et�es, pratiques et environnements, Mus�eum National d’Histoire Naturelle, case postale 56, 55 rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France e Institut de Syst�ematique, Evolution et Biodiversit�e, ISYEB, UMR 7205 CNRS MNHN UPMC EPHE, Mus�eum national d’Histoire naturelle, CP 50 (Entomologie), Paris Cedex, 05, France ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Storage is crucial to the sequence of food management. It is nonetheless at times difficult to recognize in the Canary islands archaeological record due to problems of preservation of ancient food remains. Archaeoentomology in this sense Prehispanic period can be of great value as it sheds light on past storage techniques. This study presents the findings of the Cave granaries archaeoentomological analyses carried out at the ancient granary of La Fortaleza (Gran Canaria, Spain, ca. 600- Plant remains 1450 AD), a site where the favorable conditions of preservation allow recording the food plants and insect pests Food Insects associated with storage. Moreover, the recovery of several taxa of primary and secondary pests connected to Pests different stages of store infestation (i.e. Sitophilus granarius (L.), Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.), Tenebrioides mauritanicus (L.), Mezium americanum (Laporte de Castelnau), Stegobium paniceum (L.) and Cryptolestes sp.) offers data as to the storage conditions and time intervals of the Prehispanic Canarian indigenous population. Finally, new radiocarbon-datings of the pests yield data casting light on the origin and spread of several cosmopolitan taxa such as M. americanum and on past relations between Africa, Europe and the New World. 1. Introduction The advent of the Neolithic period, with the emergence of sedenta rization, animal husbandry, agriculture and population growth, had an There are numerous cultural contexts marked by specificnutritional impact on local natural ecosystems that inevitably had a significant in and ecological conditions in which the study of insects merges with that fluence on biodiversity and, consequently, on invertebrate fauna. The of archaeology. Within the bioarchaeological disciplines, the study of study of the insect and parasites recovered from archaeological contexts insect remains from Quaternary deposits is a science that emerged in reveals that many managed to adapt perfectly to these new, anthropo Britain in the second half of the 20th century (Coope, 1977, 1986; 1990; genic niches and, consequently, had a considerable impact on the sub Osborne, 1969; Buckland, 1976). Designated as “Quaternary ento sistence economy, as they provoked major losses of food reserves. mology”, this discipline includes two distinct entities respectively Archaeoentomology yields data leading to the reconstruction of referred as “Palaeoentomology” and “Archaeoentomology”. Although human-made environments or indoor spaces and the activities that took based on the same principles and methods, the first focuses on exam place in these areas, as the presence of certain pests in archaeological ining insect assemblages for palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental contexts can be linked to specific plants and animal species (Buckland, reconstructions, while the second, exclusively related to archaeological 1979; Forbes and Milek, 2014; Giordani et al., 2020). The discipline also contexts, serves to reconstruct the way of life and health of past pop serves to identify features such as pens and latrines (Panagiotakopulu ulations, the evolution of dietary patterns, agro-pastoral practices, and and Van Der Veen, 1997; Panagiotakopulu et al., 2010). Furthermore, the impact of human activities on the past environments. insects can be a factor in the degradation of organic matter and hence * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Henríquez-Valido). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105179 Received 25 October 2019; Received in revised form 27 April 2020; Accepted 31 May 2020 0305-4403/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. P. Henríquez-Valido et al. Journal of Archaeological Science 120 (2020) 105179 their study can serve as a taphonomic marker of the conditions of preservation of certain sites (Adams, 1984). Another interesting appli cation relates to past storage since many species of insects are closely linked to types of food and their different stages of processing (Buckland, 1990; Panagiotakopulu, 2001; Huchet, 2017). Despite the great potential of entomological analyses to identify storage spaces, there is still little archaeoentomological research focusing on granaries and other specific structures due to problems of preservation and identification of these foods and features. This study offers evidence of archaeobotanical and archaeoentomological remains from the granary of La Fortaleza (Gran Canaria), a collective place of storage serving between the 6th-15th centuries AD. The organic mate rials recovered at this site include both plant remains and insect pests in an exceptional state of preservation. Their study identifies which pests are associated with the different types of stored food, determines the conditions in which the granary was maintained, estimates the time of silage, and finally offers unpublished data as to the function of Gran Canaria’s collective granaries and subsistence strategies. 2. Storage and collective granaries in Gran Canaria The Canary Islands is an archipelago in the eastern Atlantic comprising eight volcanic islands that are at least 100 km from the North African coast (Fig. 1). They were initially settled since at least the outset of the 1st millennium AD by Berber populations from the Northwest of Africa (Springer, 2001; Maca Meyer et al., 2004; Hagenblad et al., 2017; Rodríguez-Varela et al., 2017; Fregel et al., 2019, Velasco-Vazquez� et al., 2020). Although they initially settled all the islands, the different pop ulations remained isolated from each other leading each island to indi vidual historical developments until the arrival of European explorers in the 14th century AD. To cover their nutritional needs, the first settlers brought from the continent cereals, pulses and a single fruit (fig),as well as livestock (sheep/goats and pigs). The development of livestock and agriculture on the different islands progressed unevenly, with that of Gran Canaria predominating over that of the other islands as evidenced both by the archaeological record (Morales, 2010) and by diet analyses of human remains of Prehispanic populations (Velasco Vazquez,� 1998; Delgado-Darias, 2009; Arnay de la Rosa et al., 2009, 2010) (see Fig. 2). The many large indigenous settlements on the Island of Gran Canaria suggests a substantial population characterized by a complex society (Onrubia Pintado, 2003). Both archaeological evidence and information Fig. 1. Top: map of the Canary Islands. Center: Position of Gran Canaria in the gleaned from old texts penned by early European explorers signal that archipelago. Bottom: Digital shadow model of Gran Canaria with the sites agriculture played a fundamental role in the diet of the indigenous mentioned in the text (source: IDECanarias.es). population (Morales, 2010). Among the most compelling archaeological features linked to agriculture are the collective fortified granaries distributed throughout the island. These sites share links with the igudar troglodytic features and the magasins de falaise of the Maghreb (Marcy, 1940; Onrubia Pintado, 1986, 2003; Rodríguez et al., 2011–2012). These structures in Gran Canaria were dug into volcanic rock cliffs of difficultaccess near fertile agricultural soils (Morales et al., 2018). Their inner spaces consist of silos directly cut into the rock organized in rows or along the walls of circular chambers. Although the silos no longer retain their original covers, they were once sealed by large stones or wood doors (Morales et al., 2014; Naranjo-Mayor and Rodríguez-Ro dríguez, 2015). Two factors explain the conditions of desiccation inside the silos that led to the preservation of foodstuffs for centuries. The first is the constant temperature and humidity throughout the year averting the spread of pests (Culver and Pipan, 2009; Bescherer and Beaudry, 2015). The second is their inaccessibility, despite that they remained open, which reduced postdepositional disruption by humans, large mammals and other external factors. Radiocarbon datings of the plants and insects from several granaries indicate that they served mainly between the 10th and 15th centuries Fig. 2. La Fortaleza (Cave 31). Top: Floor of the silos of Unit 1 and of Silo 1 of AD (Morales et al., 2018). This time frame coincides with a period of Unit 2. Unit 1 is marked as C1 and Unit